Tag: Ireland

Kind of cool Cork

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized2 Comments

When I was about five I had a great grandmother that we just called Grandma Kinney. She was my maternal grandmother’s mom and her claim to fame was being born in County Cork, Ireland. Three summers ago we visited Cork and did the usual stuff you do when you hit the port of Cobh. That would be going to Blarney Castle, the Blarney Woolen Mill, the epicurean village of Kinsale and a few minutes in downtown Cork. So this time we didn’t need to do that so we (us and our good friends Bob and Holly) wanted to head into Cork to the English Market. It’s a typical old-style English market and bills itself as the oldest English Market in the world—and it’s not even in England.

We got off the ship, got Steve, Jamie and family off on a tour van to Blarney and grabbed a cab (took a little while) and headed into Cork. Our cab driver dropped us off at the back door to the market, just down an alleyway to the market, past a really cool mural dedicated to everyone in the world…except George Bush (really—see the photos).

We wandered through the market (which was very nice and really cool) but much smaller than we expected. So when we were done we had only been in Cork for about 45 minutes (which was kind of ridiculous for a 25 euro cab ride) so we thought we should find something else to see. On the way in from Cobh (where the ship docked), our cab driver had recommended that we see Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, the biggest church in Cork. It was pretty impressive (see the photos).

After we had seen the church, we all needed to use a rest room and Kathleen mentioned that in the last block she had seen Fordes pub and thought we could kill two birds with one stone, use their restroom and get a pint. It turned out to be a GREAT idea. Not only did they have really clean restrooms, they also had a super barman who told us the history of the bar (been in the same family for generations) and offered to teach us how to pull the perfect pint of Beamish. For the uninitiated, in the north of the republic of Ireland, Guinness is king but in Southern Ireland, Beamish is king. So now Bob and I both have certificates that we are certified to pull the perfect pint of Beamish (did you know that a Beamish must sit for a 117.5 seconds after the first pull to let the nitrogen bubbles settle?. Well I do.)

After a nice break and a pint, we took a taxi back to the ship and took a break while the others toured all over southern Ireland. The whole journey comes to an end in Dublin which I will show you a little more of tomorrow.

And monkfish
Just another pilot boat
They got olives
The cathedral of Saint Fin Barre
Quite the façade
Holly, Kathleen and Bob check ou the mural
Fordes Pub. We will come back to this later.
Along the River Lee
The sign on the back entrance
The mural on the alley entrance to the British Market in Cork
And figurines on the front of the pulpit
230 years. Can you believe it has been here for 230 years
Ad lots of other fish
Sailing into Cork, I saw another example of alternative energy in Ireland
Angel on the front…
Along with some saints.
On a fountain.
Heron alert.
The cathedral in Cobh
And an excellent altar
A magnificent ceiling
Mosaics in front of the altar
More great stained glass
Another outside shot
More doors
And more great stained glass
Along the River Lee
With a gargoyle or two
These guys were NOT amused
Then let it sit like this for 117.5 seconds
Then fill it all the way up.
The inside was beautiful and very well preserved.
WIth beautiful stained glass
The graveyard behind the church
Two fun people in front of the cathedral
Looking forward inside
Bob pours his Beamish

Here, in Cork district, you have in combination all the dangers which war can inflict. ——Eamon de Valera

Coming soon to a travel blog near you

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized3 Comments

So our trip is done and we are recovering from 27 hours spent in airports and airplanes to get home. Today is all about laundry and resting up. Not a great trip home due to so many things. Among them were weather (Denver airport closed for a time as we were attempting to land so we got to circle for a while), late flights and construction at airports made this a really long day.

I wasn’t going to add this but I want to see it in print so feel free to skip it. This is what our travel home day was like.

  1. Woke up at 3:15 am onboard Celebrity Reflection (As usual, couldn’t sleep).
  2. Left Reflection at 6:45 am (early).
  3. Arrived at Dublin Airport at 7:35.
  4. Sat in shared business class lounge with Bob and Holly until our flight to London Heathrow left at 10:50 am.
  5. Arrived London Heathrow, Terminal 5 at 12:20 pm.
  6. Transferred to London Heathrow Terminal 3 for flight to Denver. Took the better part of an hour.
  7. Sat in British Terminal 3 Business lounge until 2:40 when we boarded our flight to Denver.
  8. Arrived in Denver at 6:15 pm Denver time after circling due to weather.
  9. Stood in line for almost an hour at Customs in Denver as all inbound flights had been held for weather and then all arrived at the same time. It was a bloody zoo.
  10. Due to the fact that we could not get a Business Class award flight direct to Seattle we flew to Denver (instead of home to Seattle) we had to now check all our luggage back in for a short flight to Seattle (that we paid for…in coach) that was supposed to leave at 7:35 pm.
  11. Due to all the late arrivals, our flight didn’t leave until 9:06 pm.
  12. Arrived in Seattle at 10:55 pm.
  13. After getting our luggage we grabbed a Lyft and wound up getting home at 11:45.

So that was our day. Too long. And all to get award seats from BA via Alaska Miles. Which will bring me to a future post on finding award seats in the near future. I promise.

And now to the reason for this post. The schedule of what is to come this week. My plan is to post Iceland day 1 tomorrow afternoon, Iceland day 2 on Tuesday, Iceland day 3 and 4 on Friday. Hope that keeps you all up to date without overwhelming anyone with too much to read.

Technology doesn’t address everything – for example, air travel still sucks. —Brad Feld

Onboard Reflection—trying to not be a Grumpy Git

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized4 Comments

Yesterday (Monday, June 3) we boarded Celebrity Cruise Line’s Reflection in Dublin. If you have been reading this all along you know we are cruisers and that we love to cruise. But lately things on Celebrity, our usual cruise line of choice, have been changing and this cruise just continues that trend. When I was asked why I hadn’t posted sooner than this, I explained that so far I was not as pleased as I wanted to be and I didn’t want to come across as a grumpy git. It would have been easy for me to slip into it quickly.

Pretty much a bunch of little things and nothing big (except for a guy hitting Kathleen in the face with his jumper) and two really BLAND meals in a row for me (you know I love interesting food and this has been anything but so far). But what has been great so far are the people. Our Cruise Critic roll call sail-away event was well attended as was this morning’s Meet and Mingle. A lot of great people, all really appreciative for all the stuff we did for this Roll Call. (If you are new to my writing, you may not realize what I mean by Cruise Critic or Roll Calls so you can click this link to find out.) And it is GREAT to be back on a ship with my brother, his wife and our friends Bob and Holly. We affectionately call ourselves “The Cruise Ruiners,” which is a story for another day.

But I should start with the beginning of the day and you will see how I slowly went from the happy, carefree traveler I am (ha ha ha) to a grumpy git I sometimes become. I got up early for a photo walk as I usually do and headed out the door of our AirBnB to go and find Reflection, our ship. I did find her and she looked pretty darned good. Took a few last photos of Dublin on my way back to our AirBnB. After that it was breakfast, pack and  head to the ship. We were waiting to board at 10:00 am and onboard and having lunch by 11:30. Pretty decent embarkation except for the fact that you stop at one building to drop luggage and check in and then have to take a bus quite a ways away to get on the ship. That’s what sometimes happens in industrial ports.

Once onboard had a nice lunch and got into our stateroom right on time…but our luggage didn’t arrive until almost six hours after we had dropped it. Sorry, but that is just too long. One person in our party didn’t get their bag until after dinner. This is really wrong. Also, sad to say that so far on this cruise I am making bad food choices. Had nearly tasteless calamari appetizer followed by nearly tasteless pasta dish. From now on I am going to order whatever my brother is having because he has been raving about the food.

One of the truly different things about this embarkation day was when the muster (lifeboat) drill was held. These drills (mandated by international law for you non-cruisers) are usually held in the afternoon but because we weren’t sailing until after 10:00 pm, it was held between dinner seatings at 7:45. Which meant we were a little rushed at dinner (that’s why I didn’t send my dinner back for something else) and then we had to go to the photo gallery, of all places to stand up and watch the absolute stupidest movie ever. This is where Kathleen ran into problems when she couldn’t sit down and then some totally oblvious man with a sweater around his shoulders took it off, stood in front of her and then flipped it up to put it back on and slapped her right in the face with it. She reacted as you would if hit in the face after being forced to stand up for more than half an hour. And immediately a crew member was in her face asking if she needed to call security. That crew member was a total ass and reacted to the situation by blaming Kathleen for reacting to be slapped in the face and not to the idiot who had done this in the first place.

Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Tons of magpies in the British Isles
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Reflection
Early morning Dublin
Soccer stadium
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
More doors
More doors
Back to the canal
Again
More doors
Not all of Early morning Dublin is about history
Early morning Dublin

I’m a very early riser, and I don’t like to miss that beautiful early morning light. —David Hockney

Dublin never sleeps and is CRAZY!

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I am so serious. This city never sleeps. Went to bed with a huge, post football party going on at every bar on the street. Woke up to the party still going on. Seriously, drunks staggering down the middle of streets, trash everywhere. It even inspired me to write an Irish poem about it. Or I was inspired by the Irish House Party last night.

Dublin Sunday Morning
Beside the lovely Liffey, it didn’t make no diffy.
Dublin’s kind of iffy Sunday morning.
Trash and drunks all over, mixed in with poop from Rover
I didn’t see one clover,
Sunday morning. 

Hope you enjoyed that. You will see in my pics from my early morning walk exactly what I am talking about. And there is another NSFW verse about something else I saw that you will have to ask me the next time you see me.

After my walk and breakfast we headed out to use the second day of our HopOn/HopOff (HoHo) bus pass with Big Bus Tours. Here’s what I have to say about Big Bus Tours…never and I mean NEVER use this company. There is another HoHo bus company. BigBus drives red buses, the other guys drive green. Use them. Let me explain.

There is a marathon going on today in Dublin. The finish line is on our street actually a block from our place. We realized yesterday that this would mean that some stops would not be available today due to the race. So we checked the company website and their app. Both said that the only thing that was rerouted would be the two stops near Marion Square. I have a screen shot that says these ae the only low numbered stops that were going to be affected. So we (just Kathleen and I) walked quite a few blocks to the other side of St. Stephens Square where we had seen the bus drop off and pick up yesterday. But guess what? The bus wasn’t dropping off or picking up there. So I called the phone number I had for them and asked. She said that because of the race, they were picking up and dropping off on the other side of the park. So with my bad knee and Kathleen neuropathy killing her legs we walked back across the park (it sucks to get old). When we got there, there was a bus. We asked the driver whether he was the red or the blue line (they have two routes) and said “I am neither. We aren’t using this stop today. You will need to walk to Stop 2 (about 10 minutes away.” Normally, no big deal but the way our bodies were working today—a very big deal). So I called the company back and was told that the number I was calling was not really the bus company but rather a number in a tourist agency and they would take a message. (No wonder the woman didn’t know about the St. Stephen’s Green bus stop change.) I asked for the number of the actual bus company and she said, she didn’t know it and even is she did, she wasn’t allowed to give it out. Please excuse me here but “WHAT THE HELL????”

But we did it anyway only to get there and find out that the stop only picked up Red Route (which we had done yesterday) riders. If we wanted blue we would have to get on and go three stops up and change busses. What the hell…again! See what I mean about this company. We took the bus to the next stop and were told it would be 20 minutes until the Blue bus came and we just gave up and walked back.

LiveGuidesAnd one other thing. On the back of every bus was the ad at right. Only problem was, it wasn’t true. We rode four different busses and my brother and his family rode four others. On only two of them were their live guides. The rest had almost unintelligible, recorded (with music) narration. Boring with a capital B.

On our way we had a nice lunch, picked up some art and postcards for family and friends (yes, we still do that) and headed back through the marathon mess to home. On the way I stepped on a piece of pavement that was dry but had water and mud underneath it and shot straight up onto the other leg of my jeans that had just been washed. So now we are home washing them again and hoping they will dry tonight before we have to pack them to board the ship tomorrow. No dryer in this unit.

I am finishing this at 4:35 am Dublin time on June 3. We are off to the ship in about five hours. I am not sure how often I will be able to post while on the ship but I will try to do it on a somewhat regular basis. Our stops include Belfast on the 4th, then Reykjavik on 6th and 7th and Akureyri on the 8th & 9th before we head to Cork on the 12th and finally back here to Dublin on the 13th.

 

Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Drunks walking barefoot down the middle of the street
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Typical street scene at 6:30 in the morning. A total mess.
Ha’Penny Bridge
On the Liffey
On the Liffey
On the Liffey
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin in front of the needle
The Customs House in Early morning Dublin
Great squirrel mural
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
The Famine Monument
The Jeanne Johnston, a famous famine ship
The figurehead on the famine ship Jeanne Johnston
Sculpture on the Liffey
Falling in on itself
Molly Malone statue
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Plate in sidewalk outside the local theater
I want this suit.
Oscar Wilde
Dublin in the afternoon
In St. Stephen’s Green
In St. Stephen’s Green
Street performer at Molly Malone’s statue
Below the green cross, the world famous
End of the Women’s Marathon
End of the Women’s Marathon

Paris is cafe culture, Dublin is pub culture, and that’s the best place to solve all the world’s problems: over a pint! One of the great joys of living, I think. The problems of the world seem to disappear. —Liam Cunningham

 

Started shaky but finished strong in Dublin

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized3 Comments

This morning I was out the door before 5:00 am to walk Dublin streets and take photos. I got a bunch that I really like including a ton of doors to add to our collection. (If you have ever been in our home, you know we have more than 100 photos of doors on the walls.)You will find a lot of my favorites below. But while I was walking alongside the River Liffey I got a  text from Kathleen that she wasn’t feeling well and was going to go back to bed.

We had planned to join the rest of our Bellomo/Dorff entourage on the Hop-on, Hop-off (HoHo) bus but this put a slight crimp in our plans. Instead Kathleen slept (remember when I slept in last week, the day we toured Leeds?) in and the rest of the gang went off to ride the bus and I worked on my photos from the early morning. By 11:00 Kathleen was up and ready to go get some food and then we did a round of the HoHo bus ourselves. We rode all over Dublin (it’s a pretty compact city) before we came back to the house to FaceTime with our kids back in Washington. Had some big news there as they did what they have done before while we have been in Europe, started a big move.

This evening the entire group of us including Bob and Holly met up for a dinner and a show at the Irish House Party. It’s a combo dinner and show and we should have just gone for the show but we did both. Not the best food (kind of Irish cafeteria food) but adequate but the show is outstanding and if you are in Dublin, it’s worth seeing. Just get tickets for the show and skip the dinner.

Tomorrow we still have HoHo bus tickets and a few others things we want to do before we board Celebrity’s Reflection to sail to Iceland on Monday. Here’s the pics and remember, they look better if you click the first one to watch a slide show.

Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Did you know Dublin had a canal?
The old city hospital
The Irish House Party…13 hours early
Locks on the canal
Early morning Dublin
Canal boat
Early morning Dublin
Dublin doors
Dublin doors
Dublin doors
Dublin doors
Look at the lower left corner
He had his eye on me
Early morning Dublib
Early morning Dublib
Early morning Dublib
Early morning Dublib
An entire neighborhood where all the buildings were Google
See Spiderman
Naked Spiderman
Early morning Dublib
Early morning Dublib
More Google
The end of the canal
Early morning Dublib
Early morning Dublib
Early morning Dublib
Early morning Dublib
An arti installation in front of a theater
An arti installation in front of a theater
An arti installation in front of a theater
Early Morning Dublin
Early Morning Dublin
Early Morning Dublin
Early Morning Dublin
Along the Liffey
I wasn’t caught
Along the Liffey
Along the Liffey
Along the Liffey
For some reason there was a statue of the man who founded the Argentinean Navy
Along the Liffey
Along the Liffey
Along the Liffey
Along the Liffey
Along the Liffey
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Early morning Dublin
Kennedy’s Pub
Moor doors
More doors
More doors
Moor Doors
Early morning Dublin
At the Irish House Party
The Irish House Party

Irish music in the local pubs was my first exposure to musical expression, and I feel like Irish music is very close to musical theater because it is always telling a story. —Rory O’Malley

On to Dublin

On By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized1 Comment

After six days in Yorkshire we bid a fond farewell to Paul and Gail. Paul drove us to the airport at 6:00 am (thank you again Paul) and Gail got up to tell us goodbye (thank you again Gail). We caught our 8:22 Aer Lingus puddle jumper flight from Leeds-Bradford airport to Dublin. Arrived 10 minutes early, but unfortunately, our ride to the hotel arrived an hour late. After that snafu, we got a great driver who took us in to the city to our luggage drop where we…dropped our luggage. Then we walked a few blocks to meet our buddies Bob and Holly for lunch at a great little place called O’Neals. A real Irish pub. It was great seeing them again. Bob and Holly, not O’Neals.

After that it was back to pick up our luggage and head to our AirBnB where we got settled, welcomed my brother and his family around 4:30 (they were wiped out after flying non-stop from LA) and went out to dinner to Brookwood, an outstanding restaurant that turned out to be right across the street, we watched a little more of Britain’s Got Talent and it was off to bed.

A couple of quick thoughts about Dublin and our AirBnB. Dublin seems more crowded and crazy than Edinburgh and definitely more than wonderfully sedate Leeds and Yorkshire (where of course we were staying in a neighborhood and not right down town as we are here). For instance, we have a very famous pub (Toners) and a couple of bars across the street from us. Normally when I get up to walk in the morning (like today when I am up at 4:30), it’s quiet in the neighborhoods. Not here. There is still a loud crowd out in front of a bar down the street (I can see the bar from our front window). At 4:22 am??!! Do these people ever sleep? Our AirBnB is pretty cool. The host, whose name is Phil, met us and has really taken great care of us. A super guy. We have a big living room, a gourmet kitchen (not that we will cook) and a four bedrooms. Check out the listing at the link above. Another win for us picking great AirBnBs. It even has a bakery downstairs and we will see how great they are later today.

As I was finishing this up at 4:30 am I realized that for the first day in 10 days, I hadn’t taken any photos. Well, I took two. Both out the window from the living room. One of the world famous Toner’s Pub and the other of Brookwood, the restaurant where we had dinner (they make a wonderful lamb) so sorry, that’s all you get today. But as I am going out in about 10 minutes for an early morning walk, you should have much more tomorrow or tonight.

Fabulous place, Dublin is. The trouble is, you work hard and in Dublin you play hard as well. —Bonnie Tyler